Fortune's Fool
by Doris the Younger
Summary: Sweeney Todd thinks that he knows everything there is to know about revenge. But he really doesn't.


**Usual disclaimer:** Nothing is mine, etc.

**Fortune's Fool**

Who would have ever thought that Sweeney Todd might leave that bake house alive? Not I, say I, and I am Sweeney Todd. Didn't I know that Toby Ragg was standing at my back with a razor in his hand and hatred in his heart? I know what that leads to—I better than any other.

What I didn't know was that Turpin had brought thugs to deal with Anthony Hope while he took back his ward. They weren't speedy enough to save the Judge, of course, but one of them did peer into the bake house just in time to save my useless neck. Did they find Johanna, I wonder, and take her back? Or did she and Anthony escape after all?

And once the bodies in the bake house came to light and the secret of my barber chair was revealed, who would have thought that any other end would be offered to Sweeney Todd save a hanging – and that most speedily? But again, no.

It was a nine-days' wonder—for me no less than anyone else—when the brightest spark on Fleet Street, an amazing young barrister on the rise, decided to take my case. Not a penny did he ask—indeed, he did not ask for my permission either. But then, what man of law in all of England would have cared whether Sweeney Todd said yea or nay?

Did I say a spark? In that courtroom he was a man on fire. Every heart was wrung but mine. Benjamin Barker was a lawful and decent man, he said, until injustice and endless punishment cracked his poor brain. The monster Sweeney Todd was summoned uninvited out of the depths of a tortured soul. Are we not Englishmen? Do we not recognise madness when we see it? Can we not tell the difference between sanity and insanity?

His fiery eloquence swept the entire courtroom. If I am not mistaken, there was even a tear in the old Judge's eye—not for me, of course, but over the glorious morality of English jurisprudence. And so it was that when the gavel banged down I was pronounced insane. I would be allowed to live—in Bedlam—until I died of natural causes.

After it was all over, my barrister visited me in my prison cell for the very first time. He was a young man after all, pale and fair-haired, and I could not read his eyes through his round spectacles. My name is Giles, he said to me. Perhaps you may recall the name from before?

No, I told him. I am sure you have a fine reputation amongst your own peers but I was a barber. I never heard your name until the day you stepped up to defend me.

Well, I suppose it makes no difference now, he said. He pulled something metallic and square out of his pocket—I think it was a photograph case—and looked into it solemnly.

And then I said to him, May I ask why you chose to defend a killer like me? I am no man of law, but I cannot imagine that a case such as mine would advance your reputation.

I did not do it for my reputation, he said. I did it for my brother's sake.

That was when I asked one question too many. Was he a madman who was condemned to death?

My young barrister closed the case he was holding and returned it to his pocket. Then he smiled most pleasantly and said, Oh no, Mr. Todd. He was one of your customers.

So here I am in Bedlam.

The place is quite noisy during the day. For a few pennies anybody is allowed to come and yell at the mad people or whip them to make them do their tricks. But nobody dares to play mad games with the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, although they point their fingers and yell filthy things to tease me to yell back. I never make a sound—I just squat in my corner in my dirty straitjacket with my wild hair askew—whatever color it may be by now. And none of them ever has mercy on me—but then, why ever would they want to?

Bedlam is a bit quieter at night because it's only our screams, our yells to hear. And sometimes, sometimes, I fancy I can hear my poor mad Lucy howling over in the women's cells. "Beadle deedle deedle, deedle deedle dumpling." Yes, I know that I cut her throat. But perhaps my hand was not as sure as I thought—or perhaps she got better somehow. If I, who died over fifteen years ago, can still be sitting here, then why not she? And I scream back 'Lucy, Lucy' and sometimes I think she hears me.

Mr. Giles comes to look at me from time to time. I have no idea how often—one tends to lose track of the days and the hours here in Bedlam. He seems pleased enough with how things turned out and occasionally I see a little smile on his face. Or at least there is one on mine, for we are Englishmen after all, and we can both appreciate a game well played.

And I look at that face and I wonder—which of them, which of them was his brother?

But I don't think I'll ever figure it out.


End file.
